


Take the T-Bird Away

by osprey_archer



Category: Psych
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-23 01:49:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17674124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: Henry reflects on Shawn and Gus's friendship as he drives in to save them from yet another of Shawn's patented "let's corner the murderer in his own den and see if he confesses" schemes.





	Take the T-Bird Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plumeria47](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumeria47/gifts).



_Dear Mr. and Mrs. Guster: I regret to inform you that my son Shawn’s boneheaded shenanigans have resulted in your son Burton's death…_

Henry has been drafting some form of this communication ever since Shawn and Gus were ten and Henry had to stop them from trying to jump a canyon using a dirt bike and an entirely insufficient ramp, because “It would be so cool, Dad!” 

He has imagined this conversation so many times that it is oddly calming to run through it in his mind, even though Shawn has yet again landed himself and his best friend in mortal peril. 

Henry takes a turn so fast he clips the curb. He leans forward into the steering wheel as if that will make the car go faster. 

_Mr. and Mrs. Burton. I’m so sorry. My idiot son decided that he and Gus should confront a murderer on their own without calling for backup, and…_

Shawn doesn’t know Henry’s on his way. He had butt-dialed him again, about fifteen minutes ago. Henry lifted the phone to his ear and said, “Shawn?” and heard Shawn – his voice distant and muffled – saying, “Gus, don’t be the hard outer part of a wedge of Swiss cheese.”

“Do you mean the rind, Shawn?” Gus asked, his distant voice long-suffering. 

“What are you two even talking about?” 

Henry recognized the voice with a shock. Jake Castlejammer, scourge of the vintage car circuit. 

He wasn’t really surprised to hear Shawn accuse Castlejammer of murdering a man for scratching his prize Model T. “Even though you've got an entire garage full of cars,” Shawn began to finish. 

“Including this beautiful bright red 1956 Corvette,” Gus put in.

“Don’t touch it!” Castlejammer barked. 

They were in Castlejammer’s car warehouse. Henry took out three plastic yard flamingos with an abrupt U-turn. Why did Shawn always want to confront villains in their own lairs?

Probably because it was so cool. 

“Gus, this is not the time to compliment the man on his Corvette,” Shawn was saying. 

“It’s a great car, Shawn.”

“You’re going to single out the Corvette and not the Thunderbird?” Shawn demanded. 

Indistinguishable bickering. Castlejammer yelled, “Enough!” 

Shawn resumed his accusation as if there had been no interruption. “When Ezekiel Axelrod scratched you Model T, and you killed him.” 

“How did you figure it out?” Castlejammer snarled.

“You just told me,” Shawn said.

“Shawn!” Henry shouted, loud enough that maybe Shawn will hear it from his back pocket. 

But then there was a crash, and the call ended. And now Henry is in his car, gripping the steering wheel, composing apologies to Mr. and Mrs. Burton in the hopes that, as so many times before, he won’t actually have to use them. 

_Mr. and Mrs. Burton, I never understood why your son put up with mine, but he did, and now no one will ever compare Gus to a half-eaten loaf of pumpernickel bread again, because Jake Castlejammer just ran both of them over with a vintage Model A Ford._

Henry takes the final corner on two wheels. 

He arrives just in time to see – 

Three cop cars coming down the street from the opposite direction, lights blazing. 

A ball of flame rising out of the warehouse.

And then, two agonizing seconds later: Shawn and Gus crashing through one of the warehouse’s closed garage doors in a 1955 Thunderbird. They are both screaming. Gus is clutching the steering wheel. Shawn has his hands up like he’s on a roller coaster. 

It looks, Henry will never admit to Shawn, pretty cool. 

***

“Next time,” Henry suggests, “call me _before_ you go into the criminal’s hideout to confront him.”

“We didn’t mean to confront anyone,” Shawn protests. “We were just looking for clues.” 

“Yeah, we didn’t realize Castlejammer was the bad guy till he came out with his gun,” Gus adds. 

Juliet and Lassiter arrested Castlejammer as he stumbled out of his burning warehouse, a broken man after seeing the fire spread to his beloved cars. Henry took Shawn and Gus out for Philly cheesesteaks. 

Gus is halfway through his second sandwich. 

“That’s when we took cover behind the 1956 Corvette,” Shawn explains. “Gus insisted. I don’t know why he wanted Castlejammer to shoot that car, unless this means that he’s finally realized that the Thunderbird is a far superior – ”

Gus is chewing furiously. He swallows and says, “We’re talking about a man who committed a murder because someone scratched his Model T, Shawn, how was I supposed to know that he would shoot the best car in the history of – ”

“The Corvette? As if!”

“Is that how the warehouse caught fire?” Henry interrupts. “The gunshots?” 

They both nod. “He’s a terrible shot,” Shawn says thoughtfully. “He hit the gasoline drums in the corner. That’s when we broke for the T-bird – ” 

“ – and I suggested we should run for the door instead of sitting in a burning warehouse trying to hotwire a car – ”

“And I told him not to be the third crock pot of macaroni and cheese someone brought to the potluck, and we found the T-bird’s keys on the dashboard.”

“ _I_ found the keys on the dashboard, Shawn,” Gus says. “You probably would have died without me. What would I have told your dad?”

Henry feels a suspiciously sentimental tickle in his throat. He washes it away with a swallow of coffee. “You wouldn’t have had to tell me anything,” Henry assures Gus. “I’ve always known one of Shawn’s boneheaded stunts would get him killed one of these days.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Shawn is eating a curly fry, completely unconcerned. “Did you notice we just caught another murderer?” He raises his fist for a fistbump, and even though Gus isn’t even looking at Shawn, he fistbumps him back like he can just sense Shawn’s fist hanging there in midair. 

Henry manages not to look proud. But he does order them slices of victory cheesecake.


End file.
